“Thank you, sir, for being honest,” said Sean. “Many might be tempted to try if only for the gold they might make. I agree with you; it would be fitting to have this fixed there. I hope they can do as you say. This means a lot to me.” He gave the man a shallow bow and guided Bernard outside.
With a glance at the afternoon sun he said, “I need you to do me a favor. Some men will show up looking for me anytime now. They’ll be dressed like fighters and they won’t be too jolly; they’re rather upset with me just now. If they haven’t shown up before dawn, they didn’t come into the city or you missed them. I’m going to take this sword to the sword smith down in Basilia like he said. You can tell them that, and if your father says it’s okay, you can come with them. You could come with me, but I need you to deliver my message. If you happen to miss them, then your father knows where I live and you can come later.”
The boy looked disappointed about being left behind, but he squared his shoulders. I’ll find them if I have to wait up all night.”
Sean went to a section of bench that had a clear spot, produced a sheet of paper and a Sharpie, and wrote a message for Bernard to deliver if he found them. He sealed it with a drop of wax shaped into a four-pointed form. Sean left it a single white color; any of his men would recognize it.
He handed it to the boy. “They won’t be looking for a bath, so you can’t go back to work today. You’ll have to look for them. They might seek out your father, and they might watch the market square. Keep your eyes open. I’ll see you when I see you.” Sean gripped Bernard’s shoulder. “Take care. I must be off.”
Sean headed for the docks; he had no intention of taking a barge, but if Bernard believed that, he would tell that to Ferris, or whomever, and that suited Sean just fine.
He found a relatively secluded place in a dark corner of a seedy bar on the docks where he could explore ahead without being disturbed. Then, when he had finished that and the beer he’d ordered, he took a walk down to the docks. As soon as he was out of sight of anyone looking his direction, he hopped the distance south to Basilia.
The city of Basilia was obviously a military city. Soldiers were everywhere, and training and exercise fields dotted every level stretch of ground he could see. He suspected there were more on the other side of the city too.
He looked toward the pass; it was about ten miles wide at its narrowest point, about fifteen miles away. He had a stockade built over those hills, out of sight, a little more than halfway to the front, and five watchtowers along the border—correction, Soran had all that set up. He had lived and commanded here for over ten years before moving the capital to its present location.
I wonder if the fortifications of the pass are still the same. He figured he’d have five, maybe six days to wait before his men caught up with him. I’ll see what there is to see while I wait for them.
He walked into the wall-less city. He was marked as a stranger at once, and as such, everyone watched him as he passed; the city might have no physical walls, but it was well defended just the same.
He strolled through a thriving market square with an impressive selection of shops and stands, offering anything a man could want, especially a military man, but his first goal was a smith who could hopefully restore his sword. He walked past four smithies, scarcely noticing them as he passed, as if someone else was moving his feet.
His feet stopped him at the next place; it was just the way he remembered it, the way Soran remembered it, with only a few changes brought on by growth. On one side was a large three-story inn called the King’s Table, and on the other side was a candle and soap shop. The place was very blunt. There was no outer shop where wares were displayed for sale. It was strictly a make-on-demand type of place, and judging from the fact that four separate forges were kept in full operation, they had plenty of business.
Sean stepped inside the open barn-style doors that were big enough to drive a wagon into, if the huge barrel-shaped forges hadn’t been in the way. Wondering who he needed to talk to, he watched the men and boys work. Sweat trickled down his back from the heat, even this close to the open doors.
He didn’t need to wait long before a burly man dressed in leather pants and a leather apron shoved the piece he was working on back into the coals of his forge and stepped up to him. “What can I do for you?” Then he looked at Sean a little closer. “Do I know you?”
Sean unwrapped the bundle he was carrying. “I need my sword restored and I’m willing to use magic to get it done properly.”
The smith studied Sean’s face as he unwound the bundle, then scrutinized the blackened blade Sean handed him. He found what was left of the etching as if he knew it would be there, then he looked at another mark, it was a small mark that would have been covered by the hilt, had the hilt been there. The smith thrust the blade back into Sean’s hands. “Go. Book a room at the inn. Drink a beer or two, then come back. I’ll have this place cleared out by then. Bring this with you.” He returned to his forge without a second glance.
Sean watched him for a moment as a whole series of memories bubbled to the surface in rapid succession, then he backed out a few steps before turning and going to the King’s Table.
Inside the inn, another series of tiny memory bubbles surfaced, and Sean found himself struggling to speak a single language as he ordered his beer, then a room. He found he needed the time it took to drink two beers to digest the memories that were flooding to the surface and file them away. To date, he had experienced one or two here and there. Here, in a matter of about twenty minutes, he had been deluged, but they had only been small fragments: faces, bits of sentences or emotions, unattached to any event. He went up to his room and sank down in the single chair at a small table.
“Dad, are you busy?”
“Not terribly, are you okay?” asked Elias. “Mattie’s worried about you. She hasn’t told me everything. Jenny and Larry are fit to be tied, quite literally.”
“I almost forgot about them. Get them all together. Leave the horses for now. I… I… I need you, Dad. I need Mattie too, I think. I… It’s just for a few days, then you can go back if you want.” Sean found his voice shaking as another rush of indistinct memories flooded through on a tide of jumbled emotions.
“Give me five minutes,” said Elias. Sean could feel him running.
Sean pushed himself up and wove his way slowly out of the inn on feet that didn’t belong to him. He stepped into the narrow alley between the inn and the smithy. “Dad?”
“Ready,” replied Elias.
Just seeing them helped to steady Sean, and he took a deep breath. “Good to see you, all of you. Go, book rooms at the inn. Dad and I will be here at the smithy.”
Mattie gripped him by the shoulders and turned him to face the light from the setting sun. “You look tired,” she commented.
“I slept most of last night. We will talk later,” said Sean, and he shrugged out of her grip and turned to the smithy, followed by Elias.
“That was stiff,” said Elias.
“Not now, Dad,” said Sean. With his father at his side, he felt a little more anchored, but the hold was tenuous.
The smithy was almost empty when they entered. All but one of the forges was cooling and darkening under a cover of thickening ash. “Every member of this family would recognize that sword if they saw it,” said the big smith, as he stepped into the light of the setting sun. “You better have a very good excuse for why it looks like that.”
“I regret it, greatly. There had to be something else I could have done. My only excuse was that I had it in my hand.” Sean hung his head.
“Tell me,” growled the smith as he glowered at Sean. Sean was no stripling, but standing next to this man he looked like a teenager.
“I don’t remember it myself. Friends told me that I used it like a lightning rod and I grounded the charge. That’s why it looks like that. Can you fix it?”
“I don’t understand. Did…whatever you did…did it save lives?” asked th
e smith, looking for suitable justification.
Elias understood what he had said and was looking at him just short of gape mouthed.
“I think so; I’m not sure. My men were shielded, but the lightning had to go somewhere. I’m not sure what would have happened if I hadn’t pushed the blade into the ground.” Both the smith and Elias could see the agony Sean was feeling at having damaged the sword. “I… Surely, I could have done something else.”
There was no small amount of awe in Elias’s voice. “You took on a lightning storm?”
Elias’s words helped the smith understand better. “And you’re standing here in front of me? You’re standing here talking to me?” The smith didn’t understand everything that had happened, but he knew what a lightning strike could do. Men in armor swinging swords, standing out in the open – major battles had been stopped dead because of lightning storms. Men didn’t survive a lightning strike. “Is that why you look so pale? We don’t have to do this tonight.”
“I’m fine. It happened nearly a week ago.”
The smith knew the storm; he’d seen the lightning in the mountains to the north, but only the very edge of the storm had reached this far south. He took the blade, plunged it into the coals and pulled at the bellows. “Close the door.”
Elias pulled the big doors shut, then turned to watch Sean as he took a step forward as if he were on puppet strings. At first, Sean stepped around the forge, looking into the coals as if he were a curious child, tipping his head first to one side, then the other. Then he made a turn on his toes, his soft leather boots making no sound on the stone floor. Almost like a ballet dancer, he turned, then paced around the forge again, stiff-legged. The next pace around the forge had two turns and the arms joined in. Sean’s eyes glowed with the reflection from the forge.
Sparks flew as the smith beat the blade straight again and knocked the melted rock from its length. The length of metal breathed into and out of the forge coals, then groaned into shape under the smith’s hammer.
Sean paced and turned, turned and paced, hovering in the heat, creating the heat, directing the heat—pacing and turning.
Larry, Jenny, and Mattie slipped in the door leaving the two guards outside. Mesmerized, they joined Elias, watching.
Time passed as the hammer rang, Sean paced, and the forge glowed. Finally, the smith lay his big hammer down and picked up a smaller one. With it, he straightened the bevel along the edges. With that done, he picked up an awl and an even smaller hammer, and cleaned up the etching of the dragon, then plunged the blade into an available barrel of oil, adding the tang of hot oil and smoke to the atmosphere. When he was satisfied with how cool it had become, he pulled it out, wiped the oil off and plunged the blade back into the coals.
Sean was turning with almost every step now and his eyes looked more like flames than eyeballs. After checking the color of the blade several times and watching Sean pace, the smith finally lay the whole thing aside to cool, thus preserving the temper pounded into its length.
As the smith’s hammers became smaller, Sean’s pace slowed and his turns became more compact, until the blade rested quietly, then the smith stopped Sean’s dance. He gripped him by the shoulders and gave him a small shake. “It’s done. I’ll finish it up tomorrow when it’s cool.”
Sean pulled his eyes away from the hot metal and looked blankly at the smith. Larry moved over to stand beside him.
“I knew he was too tired for this,” muttered Mattie, though only Elias heard.
The smith gave Sean a light slap on the cheek. “It’s done,” he repeated.
“Done,” repeated Sean, then he sagged.
Larry had been waiting for this and managed to catch him before his knees hit the floor. “I think I’ll take him up to his bed,” he said as he pulled an arm around his shoulders. Jenny called one of the guards in to help, and they all left except Elias, who stepped forward to get a closer look at the blade.
The smith lit a lamp and opened the cover of a thick, wood-bound book. “I thought I recognized him from somewhere,” he said as he pushed the open book toward Elias. “King Soran’s smith, my ancestor, built that very forge first thing when they reached this place, and that sword was the first thing he made on it. Not the first thing he ever made, mind you, but the first thing he made here.”
Elias looked at the picture drawn in black ink with red die added in places. The picture could have been drawn an hour ago if it weren’t for the walls in the background. In the picture, there were no walls, just grass, horses, men, and tents – a war camp. The forge was red-hot, the smith’s hammer was raised to strike, red sparks were streaking across the page, and the young man’s eyes glowed. The young man was dressed in a white shirt with billowing sleeves and long cuffs, and the black pants had a high waist, exactly what Sean was wearing. The difference was that Sean also wore a short, black coat, and a tie. There was also a sash around his waist, and his father’s twin swords.
Elias turned the pages and looked at other pictures. All of them were skillfully drawn, all of them could have been Sean with no stretch of the imagination at all, even the one that showed Soran draped across two men’s shoulders, being led away. “Thank you, for what you’ve done, and for this,” said Elias. “I’d like him to see this too, if you don’t mind.”
“He can see it if he wants to, but he won’t need to; it’s in his blood. I can tell he remembers it, almost the same as I did.” He looked at the forge, and Elias looked too. The red-hot coals that had been heaping in the middle only a few minutes ago were now cold, white ash down at the bottom. The smith shook his head. “It’s going to take me all day tomorrow to build up the coals again.” He sighed, knuckled his back and stretched. “He can pick this up tomorrow evening. I still have to polish it, grind the edge and add the hilt.” He turned and headed out the back of the smithy, pulling his apron off as he went.
Elias closed the book reverently, and blew out the lamp before retiring to the inn.
A boy dressed in white and looking to be no older than fourteen, stopped Ferris and Laon as they made their way into the darkening market square. “Please sir, I have a message for you.” He handed Ferris the folded and sealed paper.
Ferris recognized the seal; he also recognized the paper and could tell that the message had been written with a Sharpie. The contents, however made him growl.
Ferris or Laon;
In case you haven’t guessed yet, I’m pissed at you. You’re not going to find me until I get over it, but by all means, keep looking; I promise to leave you a trail. I’ll decide when you’ve learned your lesson.
Sean
PS Learn fast and learn well. I won’t be so gentle next time.
PPS Bernard can come with you if he has his father’s permission. If he does, take care of him. Remember, he’s younger than he looks.
“Where is he?” growled Ferris as he passed the paper to Laon before he crumpled it.
“He took the barge south to Basilia, sir. He went to get his sword fixed. The smith here, my father’s friend, sent him there,” said Bernard, with a wide-eyed, youthful look in his eyes.
“Barge my ass,” grumbled Ferris. “He says you can come if you have your father’s permission.”
The boy’s face fell. “Father says I should wait until next summer. He says he may need my help here. Things are a little unsettled just now.”
Ferris gave the boy a heavy copper. “Thanks for the message; you did good. You take care, now.” He turned to Laon. “Let’s go.”
As they stalked off, Bernard could hear his growling for a surprising distance.
Humpty-Dumpty
Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
But maybe the queen could.
“Lord Moselle? Elias, can you hear me?” called Clayton.
The worry in his voice
, far more than the call itself, brought Elias out of a doze he hadn’t intended. “Clayton? What’s up?” he asked, as he scrubbed at his face thinking of a shave.
“Elias, is Seanad all right?” asked Clayton.
“He’s fine; he’s just sleeping,” said Elias, as he looked at Sean sprawled on the bed. One arm was dangling to the floor and his face was buried in the pillow. Hearing his voice, Mattie sat up from where she'd been sleeping on a bed across the room.
Clayton folded a tearful Armelle into his arms and joined her in the connection. “He’s so far away,” she said in a quavering voice. “His heart always beats right next to mine. I always feel him here so very close and warm, but suddenly he’s so far away.” A new flood of tears came with her words.
Elias jumped up and heaved Sean over onto his back; he rolled limply without responding to the rough handling. Frantic, he felt under his jaw. He found a strong, if slow pulse, and his breathing was regular. He slapped Sean on the cheek harder than he intended. “Sean, wake up.” He slapped again and Sean’s head rocked limply to the side.
The Making of a Mage King: White Star Page 29